What life?
by Jo Eilyah
Summary: Max abused, left alone, the usual. I added in a mix of school, gangs, and amnesia for my own take on a normal Maximum Ride. or as normal as she can get.  T cause im parinoid
1. Chapter 1

I sat huddled in the corner hoping that the last blows had already fallen. That hope was promptly shattered as pain exploded from my left side. I started mentally repeating a phrase that I learned at the age of six; _pain is just a message, all messages are currently on hold. _After several agonizing minutes the blows and kicks stopped. Cautiously I slowly uncurled from the balled up position that protected my vital organs. I slowly walked over to the dark shape slumped over agent the wall. Slowly I relaxed my tense muscles and walked into the bathroom. My father was asleep and would hopefully still be passed out in a couple of hours from now. If I was lucky Jeb wouldn't wake up until after I had left for school.

In the bathroom I looked at my face trying to gauge the damage that was made tonight, or this morning I guess as it was 4:06am. My thought turned from my face after I was that there was no blood. Bruises can be covered up but you can't hide a cut on your face. I was bleeding a little from minor cuts on my arms but they could be covered up with a baggy hooded sweat shirt.

School. Jeb had moved us to New York this time so I had to start a new school. As this was New York maybe I would be able to blend a little easier. Maybe. My life tended to often go against my favor. At least here it would be easier to stay away from the house.

After I ate a piece of toast and made a sandwich that I could eat a t lunch I started walking to the school. Lucky for me it was on the same street that our new house was on. Maybe Jeb did it on purpose, trying to be nice. The corners of my mouth quirked up at that ridiculous thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey thanks for the encouraging review they mean a lot to me! Sorry for taking so long I am not planning on taking that long again.**

**I do not own Maximum Ride! Just .. well you don't know about him yet.**

**no i won't tell  
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As I walked into the high school I immediately could see the distinguished groups and my heart sank. Blending in might be harder than I had hoped. I walked into the office.

"Can I help you?" asked a lady at the desk.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "I'm a new student here."

"Oh, okay! You're Maximum Ride aren't you?" she didn't even wait from ne to nod before she handed me my schedule. "I'll get someone with the same schedule and they can show you around." I just blinked and the office lady said some thing into the intercom then gestured tor me to sit in one of the chairs next to the wall. A few moments later a girl with brown hair came in. The secretary looked from her to me and pointed to me. The girl immediately walked over.

"Hi, I'm Jennifer Joy but I've always hated that name so I go by JJ." Wow, I seriously could go blind from her smile.

"Maximum, but call me Max." I told her

"Well, Max, I'm going to be your guide around or school. There shouldn't be any problems since we have exactly the same classes." She stood up and I immediately followed. The first stop was my locker. After I put away the rest of my stuff we headed to math. (I was late and we had missed some classes already.)

"Hello," said the balding man standing at the door. "You must be the new student, Maximum Ride."

"Max," I corrected. If I could avoid any perverted jokes made about my name, which would be awesome if impossible, this day might be a little more bearable.

"Max," he repeated. _Good dog_, I thought. JJ had already walked into the room and was sitting by a group of girls that were obviously her friends. Just as I started wondering where I was supposed to sit, the bell rang and everyone got up and sat in a different spot then they had when I walked in. From behind, the teacher clapped a hand on my shoulder resulting in me flinching a little. Hopefully no one saw that. It just so happened that his had was resting on one of my larger bruise which was screaming in protest. I focused on his voice trying to ignore the pain as he introduced me to the class, and directed me to one of the few empty desks in the classroom. The kid he directed me to sit next to was dressed all in black, his hair and eyes were even black. Though, I shouldn't really comment as I was wearing a black hoodie and dark washed jeans. I sat down, leaning as far away from him as I could with out looking like I was trying to run away. He grunted acknowledging that I was there and I nodded hello. He didn't say anything and we both turned our attention to the teacher.

About halfway through the lesson bits of paper started landing on my desk. I promptly crumpled them up and stuffed them in my picket which just resulted in more paper landing on my desk. After a few minutes the guy next to me took out a piece of paper, wrote something on it and pushed it onto my desk. _Really?_ I thought. His note along with all of the others was crumpled up and placed in my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the corners of his mouth twitch and exasperated sighs erupted from behind me. Emo kid next to me leaned over.

"I'm pretty sure they want you to read what they've written," he whispered. _No duh_, I ignored his advice and continued crumpling up the notes. Eventually the notes stopped coming and I was able to start paying attention again. The respite was brief though as after a few minutes the kid behind me started tapping my shoulder. _Really, couldn't they just wait until after class to harass me?_ Finally the bell rang and everyone started collecting their stuff. I walked over to JJ and quietly waited for her to say goodbye to her friends. ON my way out I dumped all of the paper from my pockets into the garbage. To my surprise on the way to our lockers JJ started talking to me.

**PLEASE REVIEW i'm new at this so any advice is appreciated by me like a ton**

**thanks**

**Jo **

**i like stars they sparkel**

**i punch you if you say other wise**


	3. Chapter 3

"You held up pretty well in there."

I shrugged, thinking that that was better then acting like I had no idea what she was talking about which was closer to the actual truth. To my surprise she started laughing. I flinched, thinking of the last time that I had laughed. Mentally I scolded myself. I really had to get my nerves under control. JJ continued talking.

"I really like you, Max. You're not at all how I expected you to be,"

"Thanks," I mumbled. "I think." She laughed again, startling me. Was she this happy all of the time? There was a small swarm of girls and boys surrounding her locker. Once they saw her they started heading over. You see, I have never been very good with people. It's been said that I have trust issues. If you ever meet a teenager who has been abused by their only family member for as long as they can remember and they didn't have 'trust issues' I world really like to meet them. Yeah… I thought not. Needless to say I wasn't all to happy with a group of people heading my way so I slipped away from JJ's side leaving her with the stampede of teens and went to my locker. I quickly got the stuff out of my locker for my next class and silently shut it. I heard quiet foot steps coming up from behind me and I intenally groaned. Usually I don't have people physically hurting me until week two. I quickly turned around to asses my attacker. It was the boy fro math class, he had surprise written all over his face.

"Shoot, where did Max go?" I heard JJ's voice say. She scanned the hallways and saw me. JJ started walking over, followed closely by her friends. Emo boy continued to stare at me. A boy with strawberry


	4. Chapter 3 continued

Blond hair stepped in front of him and started waving his hand in front of Emo Boy's face.

"Fang, what's up?" he said. "You might possibly be freaking this girl out."

"She heard me coming up behind her." Remember how I said I really don't like crowds? Well now a crowd was staring at me. I was extremely uncomfortable.

"Uh, JJ?" I managed. "Where is our next class?" I was ready to bolt even if she didn't tell me where to go.

"Two classrooms over of the left, she said. I nodded and immediately started heading toward the room looking directly at the floor. I saw a pair of legs walk in front of me. They would have effectively sopped me except I saw them and just walked around the person. I was almost to the classroom when a hand latched on to my wrist. I turned and saw that it was the boy who had called Emo boy Fang. I considered knocking him out so that he would leave me alone but thought better of it.

"Hate to break it to ya kid, but if anyone here is 'freaking this girl out' it would be you." I wrenched my wrist out of his grip and darted into the classroom. When JJ came in she walked over to me.

"We get to sit where ever we want in this class." She said. I nodded and headed to the back corner closest to the door. To my dismay, the blonde kid came in and spotted me. He started to head over, but JJ shot him a glare and he sheepishly head back to his friends.

Soon after the teacher finished introducing me and started the lesson, bits of paper started landing on my desk. I sighed, crumpled it up, and threw in the trash which conviently was placed close by. I repeated the process with all of the other pieces of paper that landed on my desk.

Once the bell finally rang the trash bin had a relatively thick layer of paper. I quickly grabbed my stuff and dashed out of the classroom, not even waiting for JJ. I had already put my stuff away and had grabbed my pitiful lunch when I realized that I didn't know where the cafeteria was. I groaned and waited for JJ by her locker. Two girls were walking with her when she finally came over. I immediately tensed up. Yeah two was better then the seven from earlier, but to tell the truth I didn't even really enjoy being with just JJ so anymore and I was far from my comfort zone. I forced myself to stay and was still standing there when they reached JJ's locker.

"Max, this is Ella," JJ said pointing to the girl with light brown hair, "and Monique," pointing to the girl with supper curly black hair. "They are my best friends." I nodded and started shifting from foot to foot as JJ put her stuff away.

"Max, you have a really cool name by the way. So much better than Monique. Anyway all of my friends call me Nudge, well every one calls me Nudge really, so just call me Nudge. Okay? You look uncomfortable. You aren't much of a people person, are you? OMG are you, like, xenophobic? Those are the people who are like, scared of strangers or something. OMG what if you are! I'm probably freaking you out! I've never met mph…" the girl's – Nudge's – rant was cut of when Ella put her hand over Nudge's mouth.

"Sorry about her, we call her the Nudge channel, all Nudge all the time." I nodded cautiously waiting for the next explosion. "So you're Max right?" I nodded again, which seemed to amuse all three of them.

"She's just like Fang," JJ said. "He never says much either." She explained. "You ready to eat?" I nodded, and they all laughed.


	5. Note to readers

Sorry about my slowness. i can't promise I'll do better in the future, but I'll sure try. Anyway, some how the capter posted itself before i had finished writing it so here is the rest of it. Hope you liked it.


	6. Chapter 6

**I have risen from the dead. Just thought you might like to know that. I wrote this story a lomg time ago, and had half a mind to just quit, but I keep having people remind me that they still want to know what**'s going to happen. So I plan on finishing Iit

T the way I have already written it. Sorry for all error. I don't own much.

The cafeteria's walls were mostly made up of windows so it was really bright in there.

"We should eat out side! It's so ggorgeous out!" Ella said. They all agreed and JJ went to go find the rest of their group. Ella left to go buy her lunch, leaving me with Nudge to gofind a spot to eat. We ended up under a huge oak tree and I got to hear all about how Nudge had never seen this tree before. I tuned her out and, trusting that her friends would find her, I began to climb the tree. When I was about half way up the tree I saw JJ and her friends heading over. I carefully made my way back down until I was just above Nudge.

"Nudge, where's Max?" I heard JJ say.

"She's right here silly." Nudge looked around and practically went into hysterics when she didn't see me. "OMG, JJ, I don't know where she went! I swear she was just here I minute ago! Maybe she's lost and has no way to find us again! Do you think we need to send out a search party?"

The emo kid, Fang, who tried to sneak up on me earlier, whispered to his friend, "Maybe she dug her own grave and was talked to death? " See, I was touched, nobody had ever cared that much that they couldn't find me before and here they were making fun of , was not making a good impression on me.I jumped out of the tree, and patted Nudge on the shoulder reassuringly. At least I thought Iit was reasuring. She jumped at least a foot in the air.

"Max! Where have you been! I was worried sick!" Raising my eybrow quizzicaly, I pointed up. Her face turned red. And the strawberryblonde, Iggy, looked like he was going to exblode from not laughing.

JJ, also containing her laughter, said, " I told you she would be fine Nudge. After they had all calmed dow they sat down to eat, a little close for comfort. Grabed my sndwich and climbed back Iinto the tree to eat. Sadly, Fang and Iggy continued to display their ignorance of personaly space and climbed up too. _Come to stalk me again, emo boy?_

"Hey, I wanted to apologize for earlier. You know freaking you out and all." Iggy flashed me what was mostlikely a winning smile. He paused, was I suposed to have response to that? "So how'd you know that Fang was behind you earlier? " Was that suposed to be a trick question? Fang looked up from his lunch.

"He was walking," I said, confused. " I heard footsteps and turned around. What's the big deal?"

They were both shaking their heads before I finished. "But nobody hears Fang."

"Well, I did. Thanks, for this point less conversation, but the bell's going to ring." I jumped out of the tree and went to my locker, which, luckily, I remembered where it was. Lunch makes it final, I thought. People are crazy.

AN I'd love any advice that's thrown my way. And if anyone thinks I should just give up tell me that too.


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